Image.

Kurt's been Up North ...

Go up along the eastern side of Lake Michigan, steer northeast when the land bends away at Point Betsie, and you come before long to Sleeping Bear Point–an incredible flat-topped sand dune rising five hundred feet above the level of the lake and going north for two miles or more. It looks out over the dark water and the islands that lie just offshore, and in the late afternoon the sunlight strikes it and the golden sand turns white, with a pink overlay when the light is just so, and little cloud shadows slide along its face, blue-gray as evening sets in. Sleeping Bear looks eternal, although it is not; this lake took its present shape no more than two or three thousand years ago, and Sleeping Bear is slowly drifting off to the east as the wind shifts its grains of sand, swirling them up one side and dropping them on the other; in a few centuries it will be very different, if indeed it is there at all. Yet if this is a reminder that this part of the earth is still being remodeled it is also a hint that the spirit back of the remodeling may be worth knowing. In the way this shining dune looks west toward the storms and the sunsets there is a profound serenity, an unworried affirmation that comes from seeing beyond time and mischance. A woman I know says that to look at the Sleeping Bear late in the day is to feel the same emotion that comes when you listen to Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto, and she is entirely right. The message is the same. The only trouble is that you have to compose a planet, or great music, to say it persuasively. Maybe man–some men, anyway–was made in the image of God, after all.

Bruce Catton, from Waiting for the Morning Train

Luncheon.

Conservation.

Iron Mountain Daily News on the last Forest Service nursery producing trees in Eastern Region ...

Toumey Nursery is one of eight locations managed by the USFS to provide seedlings and seeds for United States destinations both within and without Forest Service jurisdiction. The other growers are Ashe Seed Extractory in Mississippi, C. E. Bessey Nursery in Nebraska, Placerville Nursery in California, Lucky Peak Nursery and Coeur d’Alene Nursery in Idaho, and J. Herbert Stone Nursery and Bend Seed Extractory in Oregon.

Six of the facilities are financed nurseries, while two are seed extractories. They serve to “provide locally adapted plants and seed for reforestation projects, provide an assured source of desirable species and stock types for restoring native ecosystems, and maintain the (USFS)’s position as a conservation leader,” states usda.gov.

Toumey Nursery, in particular, has multiple services. In fields, 66 acres are available for planting. Species grown are primarily red pine, jack pine, white pine, spruces, tamarack, cedars, hemlock, oaks, maples and birches, according to their website. About 4 million seedlings are shipped out each year, and at full capacity, the fields may grow up to 12 million seedlings at a time. Trees are usually between 1 and 3 years old at time of relocation, depending on species.

Trees rule.  So do birds.  Birds in trees rule. 

Maximus.

The Keewanau Refport on a deep dive into Superior Maximus ...

We are about to get our clearest look ever at the deepest portion of Lake Superior.

Superior Maximus remains a mystery in and of itself. Located in the central part of the lake, its deepest point is approximately 1,332 feet below the surface. Sunlight does not penetrate to that depth, and the water stays at a constant 39 degrees Fahrenheit.

Recently, it produced another mystery. Siscowit lake trout that live there have been spotted that appear to be emaciated, without the fat and flesh such trout normally carry. They’re being called “zombie fish.” No one knows what’s causing the problem ...

Infinite.

The Hoyt Library in Saginaw, Michigan was one of the infinite gifts of my youth ...

A POEM of GIFTS

May no one slight, with tears or a reproach,

This declaration of God’s mastery,

That, with sublime irony,

Gave me at once books and the night.

He vested those lightless eyes

With guardianship of the city of books,

Even though they can read

But senseless passages in the library of dreams,

Where sunrises give way to zeal. The day

Lavishes them in vain with infinite books,

Toilsome like the manuscripts

That perished in Alexandria.

Of hunger and of thirst (or so goes the Greek legend)

A king once died amidst fountains and gardens;

Aimless and unrelenting I tire the confines

Of this blind vault of a slender library.

Encyclopedias, atlases, the East

And West, centuries, dynasties,

Symbols, the cosmos and cosmogonies,

Afford us the walls, albeit uselessly.

Slow by my shadow, I explore the

Hollow penumbra with a tottering crosier,

I, who imagined Paradise

Under the figment of a library.

Something unnamed, certainly not

Random fate, governs all this;

Somebody else has already received in hazy

Evenings the many books, and their shadow.

As I rove through the slow galleries,

I happen to feel with sacred horror that

I am the other, the dead one, who must have

Ambled his days past, in a similar vein.

Who between the two writes this poem of

A plural me albeit of just one shadow?

Who cares about the word convoking me

If the anathema is one and indivisible?

Groussac or Borges, I behold this dear

World both distorting and dying down

Into a pale, vague ash, all too

Similar to both slumber and oblivion.

Jorges Luis Borges

Locally-Sourced.

Locally-sourced ice.

Ever.

Return.

The RETREAT

Happy those early days! when I

Shined in my angel infancy.

Before I understood this place

Appointed for my second race,

Or taught my soul to fancy aught

But a white, celestial thought;

When yet I had not walked above

A mile or two from my first love,

And looking back, at that short space,

Could see a glimpse of His bright face;

When on some gilded cloud or flower

My gazing soul would dwell an hour,

And in those weaker glories spy

Some shadows of eternity;

Before I taught my tongue to wound

My conscience with a sinful sound,

Or had the black art to dispense

A several sin to every sense,

But felt through all this fleshly dress

Bright shoots of everlastingness.

       O, how I long to travel back,

And tread again that ancient track!

That I might once more reach that plain

Where first I left my glorious train,

From whence th’ enlightened spirit sees

That shady city of palm trees.

But, ah! my soul with too much stay

Is drunk, and staggers in the way.

Some men a forward motion love;

But I by backward steps would move,

And when this dust falls to the urn,

In that state I came, return.

Henry Vaughan

State.

Schoolcraft, A Map of the Acting Superintendency of Michigan, 1837

Michigan became the 26th state on this day in 1837.

Beautiful.

On this day in 1805, President Thomas Jefferson signed an act of the United States Congress that made the most beautiful part of the planet the Michigan Territory.

Incomparable.

From the Geological Survey Division of the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, R. W. Kelley and W. R. Farrand's The Glacial Lakes around Michigan ...

The Great Lakes are incomparable. They could have been named "The Greatest Lakes" because no other body of fresh water in the world rivals them in size. Great size, however, is but one of many attributes. Consider also their strategic continental interior location, temperate climate, unique shore line configuration, great depth, and perhaps above all, their lucid beauty. Furthermore, have you ever noticed how readily they can be spotted on a globe?

Many of us are prone to underestimate the importance of these vast inland seas. As intensive exploitation of land and water resources becomes increasingly necessary, respect for this magnificent natural resource will increase. Today many persons are earnestly wondering how these lakes were formed ...

Lives.

Firchau, Wandering Michilimackinac, c. 1970

He lives the poetry that he cannot write.

Oscar Wilde

Happy Birthday, Bruce Catton

Go up along the eastern side of Lake Michigan, steer northeast when the land bends away at Point Betsie, and you come before long to Sleeping Bear Point–an incredible flat-topped sand dune rising five hundred feet above the level of the lake and going north for two miles or more. It looks out over the dark water and the islands that lie just offshore, and in the late afternoon the sunlight strikes it and the golden sand turns white, with a pink overlay when the light is just so, and little cloud shadows slide along its face, blue-gray as evening sets in. Sleeping Bear looks eternal, although it is not; this lake took its present shape no more than two or three thousand years ago, and Sleeping Bear is slowly drifting off to the east as the wind shifts its grains of sand, swirling them up one side and dropping them on the other; in a few centuries it will be very different, if indeed it is there at all. Yet if this is a reminder that this part of the earth is still being remodeled it is also a hint that the spirit back of the remodeling may be worth knowing. In the way this shining dune looks west toward the storms and the sunsets there is a profound serenity, an unworried affirmation that comes from seeing beyond time and mischance. A woman I know says that to look at the Sleeping Bear late in the day is to feel the same emotion that comes when you listen to Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto, and she is entirely right. The message is the same. The only trouble is that you have to compose a planet, or great music, to say it persuasively. Maybe man–some men, anyway–was made in the image of God, after all.

Bruce Catton, born on this day in 1899, from the excellent book, Waiting for the Morning Train

Mooney's.

Thanks, Pop.

Enduring.

American Spoon will set you free ...

We believe in real food with deep, authentic flavor, and everything we make celebrates the enduring connection between food and place.

Here along Lake Michigan’s northern coast, independent family farmers tend to some of America’s most prolific fruit orchards and berry farms. Michigan is renowned for its lake effect, and this is what makes fruit grown here so special. The lake's moderating effect delivers soft summer rain and cool night air after long summer days, which gives our fruit extra time to develop a depth of flavor, complexity, and character that's unique to Michigan-grown fruit.

Outstanding products

• Jams, preserves, nut butters
• Whole-grain mustard is one of the world's best
• No bagel is complete without a Bloody Mary

Psst! A little secret.  Around Christmas time, at the beginning of what will be a quiet day, find a wheel of Pierre Robert and dump a jar of American Spoon's brandied cherries over it, and spend the day floating.  Order it soon.  It's hard to come by over the holidays.

Never.

During the hostage situation, Vetter said a drone was used to lower a 24 oz. Faygo red pop in a bag to Allen. When Allen exposed himself, law enforcement could see him through the glass of the building. State Police said a trooper shot and killed Allen. MSP said Allen never grabbed the bag.

Always.

Firchau, Mum and Pop’s, 2013

We comfort ourselves by reliving memories of protection. Something closed must retain our memories, while leaving them their original value as images. Memories of the outside world will never have the same tonality as those of home and, by recalling these memories, we add to our store of dreams; we are never real historians, but always near poets, and our emotion is perhaps nothing but an expression of a poetry that was lost.

Gaston Bachelard, from The Poetics of Space